damned_institute | Day 41: Women's Showers

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Day 41: Women's Showers

Utena was very, very glad that the patients were finally being allowed to go to the showers. Even for a girl more used to sweating than many in her gender, two days without a shower was definitely enough to make her feel stickier and stinkier than she preferred to be. Especially after all the running around and tearing apart of rooms she, Celes and Edward had done the night before.

I really hope those rooms magically turned clean this morning or something, like every other place in here seems to, Utena thought at that, hoping that no patients had awoken to the rather desperate-looking remains of a break-and-enter.

Taking a wash towel from one of the baskets, Utena headed for a free showerhead.

[Free. Limit: Any]

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"I'm Utena Tenjou. Nice to meet you, Hokuto," said Utena as she turned on the shower. Then she shook her head, answering, "And no, this is my third day if you don't count the night I woke up during. Still not sure I believe this place, but I'm kind of used to weird stuff, so I guess it's a little easier for me to take than it is for some."

She started lathering the shampoo into her long hair. "How about you? Are you new-ish like me, or a . . . I guess 'veteran' is the right word?" Utena didn't like the idea of anyone having to call themselves a veteran of Landel's, but if there wasn't anything she could do about it, she was glad they were there. Otherwise adjusting would have been a lot harder on new patients like her.

"It's weird to say, but I guess I'm a veteran now. It's been... two weeks, I think?" Hokuto shook her head. "You lose track of time, especially when there's so much happening at once. I didn't even have a normal life anymore before I ended up here." She'd share if she was asked, but not right this second; it was awfully depressing.

"At least I've seen my share of horror movies? Even if sometimes it just freaks me out even more when I start trying to guess what's around the next corner."

"Amazing how quick people become veterans around here. People really come and go that quickly?" Utena remarked as she continued lathering her hair. "Doesn't help that the days and nights feel really long, even when nights are cut short. I haven't met any monsters face-to-face yet, but I can't imagine how drawn-out and scary a fight would feel with the way time seems to pass here."

Unfortunately for Hokuto, Utena was indeed curious when she mentioned not having a normal life. Utena was many things, but tactful was not always one of them. "Oh? What kind of life did you have, then? I have to wonder if it's as weird as what was going on for me before coming here." Utena still wasn't quite comfortable with sharing in-depth details of the dueling game with strangers. However, after having spent the past few days adjusting to the idea that everyone was from strange alternate universes, she was becoming much less averse to the idea of at least telling people the basics.

"...fighting to save my brother's life," Hokuto admitted, a little quietly. "I couldn't just do nothing." Even when I knew it meant dying myself. She'd had some tiny, tiny hope that when she told Sei-chan to kill her instead, he would realize love meant something, and simply stop. Even though he hadn't, she had no regrets. Not about that.

Utena winced, suddenly realizing that maybe she had stepped into uncomfortable territory. Still, she kept talking, not wanting Hokuto to think that she wasn't sympathetic. "I know that feeling. I'm a bit of a compulsive protector myself," she said, making a gross understatement. "What did he need saving from?"

Somehow, Hokuto didn't think she should admit that the man who had tried to kill her brother was someone she'd been pushing at him for a year previously. "Someone we thought was a friend."

She'd learned to listen to her instincts a little better... maybe. But she wouldn't give up her faith in people or in love, even after what had happened. And she still wanted to see Sei-chan again, because she'd missed him.

That nerve certainly struck home for Utena. Not that she'd ever considered Touga a friend, but he had pretended to be her prince. And she had believed him. Even if only for a little while before he so deftly tore down the illusion, she had really believed him.

"I'd like to think betrayals like that don't happen often. You couldn't have known," she assured Hokuto after a moment of silence, not sure if she was saying the right thing but at least trying to say something.

[Sorry!! Finals are starting to eat me.]

Hokuto just shook her head; no, she'd known. She'd simply chosen to trust in the Sei-chan she thought she knew.

After a moment of silence, though, she looked back at Utena and smiled. "Sorry, I just get gloomy sometimes. So what kind of weirdness are you used to?"

Utena was more than willing to keep away from gloomy topics. She had moved past that incident, had quite literally beaten it, in fact. She wouldn't let anything like that happen to her or any of her friends again, now that she knew what to look for.

"It's a bit of a long story," Utena warned before moving her head under the shower spray and rinsing out most of the suds there. When she was done, she asked: "Um, I guess the gist of it is that lately I've been fighting to keep one of my friends from being treated like some kind of trophy. There are people at my school that think they'll gain some kind of miracle power if they 'own' her, whatever that means. I don't know what they're talking about. She's a person just like everyone else, whether she has some kind of special power or not. She doesn't deserve to be treated like someone's property."

Utena clenched a fist over her chest unconsciously, remembering the first time she had ever seen Himemiya. It had also been the first time she had seen Himemiya being abused. Following that thought came the more recent memory of seeing the hollow, broken Himemiya as she had seen just after her arrival in the institute. I have to see her sometime today, thought Utena with worry, wondering if the other girl had responded to her bulletin board message yet. Sometime today, I'll push through the crowds and find her to make sure she's still okay.

And I thought being objectified by a bunch of teenage boys was bad... "Yikes," was all Hokuto could say. "What kind of powers does she have?" If she could enhance strength or something, that would figure. It still didn't justify treating a girl like a trophy, enchanted or not.

She noted that Utena sounded pretty modern. Was magic a secret in her world? If so, that really had to be a big pain, considering her whole situation!

"Honestly? I'm not sure," Utena answered with a shrug. "The most obvious one I can think of is this thing she does every time we start a duel. She says this kind of creepy chant and then a special sword appears from her chest." She paused for a moment, letting that sink in for Hokuto. She knew that she had needed a bit to actually believe that the Sword of Dios wasn't just a trick sword, and she had been seeing it in person. She couldn't imagine how hard that would be to believe hearing it second-hand.

She then continued: "I guess that sword has something to do with everything that's going on, but the people fighting for her seem less worried about the sword and more about something it's supposed to represent. What that is, I don't really know. They all seem to talk differently about what the power they want actually does." The fact that Utena was speaking about all of this in relative stride spoke volumes of just how far from the norm her life had strayed in the last several months.

"A sword... from her chest...? Doesn't--doesn't that hurt?" Even Hokuto was getting weirded out!

"Uh, does she fight with it?" That would be... pretty awesome, really. I wouldn't mind that power, if I was better with swords! And if she had Anthy's problem, that would definitely be incentive to GET better with swords. She'd be no one's property.

Yup, figured, Utena thought upon hearing Hokuto's reaction. Utena had to admit, though, that she had never really thought about whether producing the sword hurt Himemiya or not. The glow above her chest made it seem as though the sword were coming more from another dimension than from her body, and Himemiya herself had never seemed to be in pain from the look on her face. Maybe being in a trance helps or something. I should ask her when I find her.

"I don't know about whether it hurts, but she doesn't use it, no. Whoever's . . ." Utena sighed a bit " . . . 'engaged' to her uses it. In this case, that'd be me. I hate that word, though. I don't like thinking of her as my bride when it's not her choice to make. She's a friend, and that's all she should have to be." Never mind the fact that Utena didn't like girls that way. She considered herself straight as an arrow, Wakaba's weird ways of showing affection aside.

"It's good you don't want to force her," Hokuto said, giving her a smile. "Nobody should have to submit to that unless they want to.

"So, in your case, does she want to?" Hey, she'd totally go for Utena if she was expected to be her bride anyway!

"Well of course no one should. I don't see what the others don't see about tha-- wait, what?" Utena paused. Her cheeks flushed pink. She was pretty sure that Himemiya didn't really want to be anyone's bride yet. They were all too young for that kind of thing, weren't they? She was also pretty sure that she didn't want to be Utena's girlfriend either, because that seemed . . . weird. Himemiya had never seemed like that type, had she?

Well there was that one dance on the night of the ball. She seemed to enjoy it a lot . . . No, no, that was something different! I think? Oh boy.

"Er, well, it's hard to tell. She has this way of hiding the things she's really thinking and pretending that everything's okay when it's not," she tried to explain, hopefully without embarrassing herself too much. "It worries me sometimes. I've ended up assuming too much before about what she wants, and I don't want to do that again."

Hokuto just smiled a little more. "Then I think you're doing good enough by her. Just don't pressure her. Even if you can't get her to take any initiative, being open and not expecting anything goes a long way."

It had occurred to her that as the "Bride", Anthy might be forced into... certain acts. Hokuto's own girlfriend at home, in a way, had been as well. So Hokuto knew a little about gently coaxing someone to open up after bad experiences.

"Thanks. That's what I like to think will help too," said Utena, finishing the rinsing of her hair and body and finally turning off the shower spray. She was pretty sure she didn't want to mention anything of the way in which Himemiya had tried to open up the other night, saying something about not being who Utena thought she was. Utena still wasn't even sure what to think about those words, let alone what a stranger would think. A very nice stranger, but still.

"Anyway, thanks for keeping me company. If you ever want to get a hold of me again or need help with anything, post a message to the bulletin board. We just met, but I get the feeling we could be really good friends," Utena said with a smile as she began toweling herself off. "I think I'm going to go looking for my friend after this. I haven't seen her since yesterday."

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Day 41: Women's Showers

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